THE TRUCE
I
Nearly a week passed. Hilda, in the leisure of a woman of fashion after
dinner, was at the piano in the drawing-room. She had not urgent
stockings to mend, nor jam to make, nor careless wenches to overlook,
nor food to buy, nor accounts to keep, nor a new dress to scheme out of
an old one, nor to perform her duty to her neighbour. She had nothing
to do. Like Edwin, she could not play the piano, but she had picked up
a note here and a note there in the course of her life, and with much
labour and many slow hesitations she could puzzle out a chord or a
melody from the printed page. She was now exasperatingly spelling with
her finger a fragment of melody from one of Dvorak's "Legends,"--a
fragment that had inhabited her mind since she first heard it, and that
seemed to gather up and state all the sweet heart-breaking intolerable
melancholy implicit in the romantic existence of that city on the map,
Prague. On the previous day she had been a quarter of an hour
identifying the unforgetable, indismissible fragment amid the multitude
of notes. Now she had recognisably pieced its phrases together, and as
her stiff finger stumbled through it, her ears heard it, once more; and
she could not repeat it often enough. What she heard was not what she
was playing but something finer,--her souvenir of what Tertius Ingpen
had played; and something finer than that, something finer than the
greatest artist could possibly play--magic!
It was in the nature of a miracle to her that she had been able to
reproduce the souvenir in physical sound. She was proud of herself as a
miracle-worker, and somewhat surprised. And at the same time she was
abject because she "could not play the piano." She thought that she
would be ready to sacrifice many happinesses in order to be able to play
as well as even George played, that she would exchange all her own gifts
multiplied by a hundred in order to be able to play as Janet Orgreave
played, and that to be a world-renowned pianist dominating immense
audiences in European capitals must mean the summit of rapture and
glory. (She had never listened to a world-renowned pianist.)
Meanwhile, without the ennui and slavery of practice, she was enchanting
herself; and she savoured her idleness, and thought of her young pretty
servants at work, and her boy loose and at large, and her husband
keeping her, and of the intensity of beautiful sorrow palpitating behind
the mediaeval facades of Prague. Had Ingpen overheard her, he might have
demanded: "Who is making that infernal noise on the piano?"
Edwin came into the room, holding a thick green book. He ought long ago
to have been back at the works (or "shop," as it was still called,
because it had once been principally a shop), keeping her.
"Hello!" she murmured, without glancing away from the piano. "I thought
you were gone."
They had not quarrelled; but they had not made peace; and the open
question of lithography and the new works still separated them.
Sometimes they had approached each other, pretending amiably or even
affectionately that there was no open question. But the reality of the
question could not be destroyed by any pretence of ignoring it.
While gazing at the piano, Hilda could also see Edwin. She thought she
knew him, but she was always making discoveries in this branch of
knowledge. Now and then she was so bewildered by discoveries that she
came to wonder why she had married him, and why people do marry--really!
The fact was that she had married him for the look in his eyes. It was
a sad look, and beyond that it could not be described. Also, a little,
she had married him for his bright untidy hair, and for that short
oblique shake of the head which with him meant a greeting or an
affirmative. She had not married him for his sentiments nor for his
goodness of heart. Some points in him she did not like. He had a
tendency to colds, and she hated him whenever he had a cold. She often
detested his terrible tidiness, though it was a convenient failing.
More and more she herself wilfully enjoyed being untidy, as her mother
had been untidy.... And to think that her mother's untidiness used to
annoy her! On the other hand she found pleasure in humouring Edwin's
crotchettiness in regard to the details of a meal. She did not like his
way of walking, which was ungainly, nor his way of standing, which was
infirm. She preferred him to be seated. She could not but regret his
irresolution, and his love of ease. However, the look in his eyes was
paramount, because she was in love with him. She knew that he was more
deeply and helplessly in love with her than she with him, but even she
was perhaps tightlier bound than in her pride she thought.
Her love had the maladies of a woman's love when it is great; these may
possibly be also the maladies of a man's love. It could be bitter.
Certainly it could never rest from criticism, spoken or unspoken. In
the presence of others she would criticise him to herself, if not aloud,
nearly all the time; the ordeal was continuous. When she got him alone
she would often endow him at a stroke with perfection, and her
tenderness would pour over him. She trusted him profoundly; and yet she
had constant misgivings, which weakened or temporarily destroyed her
confidence. She would treat a statement from him with almost hostile
caution, and accept blindly the very same statement from a stranger!
Her habit was to assume that in any encounter between him and a stranger
he would be worsted. She was afraid for him. She felt that she could
protect him better than he could protect himself,--against any danger
whatever. This instinct to protect him was also the instinct of
self-protection; for peril to him meant peril to her. And she had had
enough of peril. After years of disastrous peril she was safe and
George was safe. And if she was passionately in love with Edwin, she
was also passionately in love with safety. She had breathed a long sigh
of relief, and from a desperate self-defender had become a woman. She
lay back, as it were, luxuriously on a lounge, after exhausting and
horrible exertions; she had scarcely ceased to pant. At the least sign
of recurring danger all her nerves were on the _qui vive_. Hence her
inimical attitude towards the project of the new works and the extension
of lithography in Bursley. The simpleton (a moment earlier the perfect
man) might ruin himself--and her! In her view he was the last person to
undertake such an enterprise.
Since her marriage, Clara, Maggie, and Auntie Hamps had been engaged in
the pleasant endless task of telling her all about everything that
related to the family, and she had been permitted to understand that
Edwin, though utterly admirable, was not of a creative disposition, and
that he had done nothing but conserve what his father had left. Without
his father Edwin "would have been in a very different position." She
believed this. Every day, indeed, Edwin, by the texture of his hourly
life, proved the truth of it.... All the persons standing to make a
profit out of the new project would get the better of his fine ingenuous
temperament--naturally! She knew the world. Did Edwin suppose that she
did not know what the world was? ... And then the interminable worry of
the new enterprise--misgivings, uncertainties, extra work, secret
preoccupations! What room for love, what hope of tranquillity in all
that? He might argue---- But she did not want to argue; she would not
argue. She was dead against the entire project. He had not said to her
that it was no affair of hers, but she knew that such was his thought,
and she resented the attitude. No affair of hers? When it threatened
her felicity? No! She would not have it. She was happy and secure. And
while lying luxuriously back in her lounge she would maintain all the
defences of her happiness and her security.
II
Holding the green book in front of her, Edwin said quietly:
"Read this!"
"Which?"
He pointed with his finger.
She read:
"_I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and
self-contained._
_I stand and look at them long and long._
_They do not sweat and whine about their condition._
_They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins._
_They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God._
_Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning
things._
_Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of
years ago._
_Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth._"
Edwin had lately been exciting himself, not for the first time, over
Walt Whitman.
"Fine, isn't it?" he said, sure that she would share his thrill.
"Magnificent!" she agreed with quiet enthusiasm. "I must read more of
that." She gazed over the top of the book through the open
blue-curtained window into the garden.
He withdrew the book and closed it.
"You haven't got that tune exactly right, you know," he said, jerking
his head in the direction of the music.
"Oh!" She was startled. What did he know about it? He could not play
the piano.
"Where are you?" he asked. "Show me. Where's the confounded place on
the piano? Well! At the end you play it like this." He imitated her.
"Whereas it ought to be like this." He played the last four notes
differently.
"So it ought!" She murmured with submission, after having frowned.
"That bit of a tune's been running in my head, too," he said.
The strange beauty of Whitman and the strange beauty of Dvorak seemed to
unite, and both Edwin and Hilda were uplifted, not merely by these
mingled beauties, but by their realisation of the wondrous fact that
they both took intense pleasure in the same varied forms of beauty.
Happiness rose about them like a sweet smell in the spaces of the
comfortable impeccable drawing-room. And for a moment they leaned
towards each other in bliss--across the open question.... Was it still
open? ... Ah! Edwin might be ingenuous, a simpleton, but Hilda admitted
the astounding, mystifying adroitness of his demeanour. Had he
abandoned the lithographic project, or was he privately nursing it? In
his friendliness towards herself was there a reserve, or was there not?
She knew ... she did not know ... she knew.... Yes, there was a
reserve, but it was so infinitesimal that she could not define
it,--could not decide whether it was due to obstinacy of purpose, or
merely to a sense of injury, whether it was resentful or condescending.
Exciting times! And she perceived that her new life was gradually
getting fuller of such excitements.
"Well," said he. "It's nearly three. Quarter-day's coming along. I'd
better be off down and earn a bit towards Maggie's rent."
Before the June quarter-day, he had been jocular in the same way about
Maggie's rent. In the division of old Darius Clayhanger's estate Maggie
had taken over the Clayhanger house, and Edwin paid rent to her
therefor.
"I wish you wouldn't talk like that," said Hilda, pouting amiably.
"Why not?"
"Well, I wish you wouldn't."
"Anyhow, the rent has to be paid, I suppose."
"And I wish it hadn't. I wish we didn't live in Maggie's house."
"Why?"
"I don't like the idea of it."
"You're sentimental."
"You can call it what you like. I don't like the idea of us living in
Maggie's house. I never feel as if I was at home. No, I don't feel as
if I was at home."
"What a kid you are!"
"You won't change me," she persisted stoutly.
He knew that she was not sympathetic towards the good Maggie. And he
knew the reasons for her attitude, though they had never been mentioned.
One was mere vague jealousy of Maggie as her predecessor in the house.
The other was that Maggie was always very tepid towards George. George
had annoyed her on his visits previous to his mother's marriage, and
moreover Maggie had dimly resented Edwin's interest in the son of a
mysterious woman. If she had encountered George after the proclamation
of Edwin's engagement she would have accepted the child with her
customary cheerful blandness. But she had encountered him too soon, and
her puzzled gaze had said to George: "Why is my brother so taken up with
you? There must be an explanation, and your strange mother is the
explanation." Edwin did not deny Maggie's attitude to George, but he
defended Maggie as a human being. Though dull, "she was absolutely the
right sort," and the very slave of duty and loyalty. He would have
liked to make Hilda see all Maggie's excellences.
"Do you know what I've been thinking?" Hilda went on. "Suppose you were
to buy the house from Maggie? Then it would be ours."
He answered with a smile:
"What price 'the mania for owning things'? ... Would you like me to?"
There was promise in his roguish voice.
"Oh! I should. I've often thought of it," she said eagerly. And at
the same time all her gestures and glances seemed to be saying: "Humour
me! I appeal to you as a girl pouting and capricious. But humour me.
You know it gives you pleasure to humour me. You know you like me not to
be too reasonable. We both know it. I want you to do this."
It was not the fact that she had often thought of the plan. But in her
eagerness she imagined it to be the fact. She had never seriously
thought of the plan until that moment, and it appeared doubly favourable
to her now, because the execution of it, by absorbing capital, ought to
divert Edwin from his lithographic project, and perhaps render the
lithographic project impossible for years.
She added, aloud:
"Then you wouldn't have any rent to pay."
"How true!" said Edwin, rallying her. "But it would stand me in a loss,
because I should have to pay too much for the place."
"Why?" she cried, in arms. "Why should Maggie ask too much just because
you want it? And think of all the money you've spent on it!"
"The money spent on it only increases its value to Maggie. You don't
seem to understand landlordism, my child. But that's not the point at
all. Maggie won't ask any price. Only I couldn't decently pay her less
than the value she took the house over at when we divided up. To wit,
L1,800. It ain't worth that. I only pay L60 rent."
"If she took it over at too high a value that's her look-out," said the
harsh and unjust Hilda.
"Not at all. She was a fool. Albert and Clara persuaded her. It was a
jolly good thing for them. I couldn't very well interfere."
"It seems a great shame you should have to pay for what Albert and Clara
did."
"I needn't unless I want to. Only, if I buy the house, L1,800 will have
to be the price."
"Well," said Hilda. "I wish you'd buy it."
"Would she feel more at home if he did?" he seductively chaffed her.
"Yes, she would." Hilda straightened her shoulders, and smiled with
bravado.
"And suppose Mag won't sell?"
"Will you allow me to mention it to her?" Hilda's submissive tone
implied that Edwin was a tyrant who ruled with a nod.
"I don't mind," he said negligently.
"Well, one of these days I just will."
Edwin departed, leaving the book behind. Hilda was flushed. She
thought: "It is marvellous. I can do what I like with him. When I use
a particular tone, and look at him in a particular way, I can do what I
like with him."
She was ecstatically conscious of an incomprehensible power. What a
role, that of the capricious, pouting queen, reclining luxuriously on
her lounge, and subduing a tyrant to a slave! It surpassed that of the
world-renowned pianist!...
III
But soon she became more serious. She had a delicious glow of
seriousness. She overflowed with gratitude to Edwin. His good-nature
was exquisite. He was not perfect. She could see all his faults just
as plainly as when she was angry with him. But he was perfect in
lovableness. She adored every aspect of him, every manifestation of his
character. She felt her responsibility to him and to George. It was
hers to bring grace into their lives. Without her, how miserable, how
uncared for, those two would be! They would be like lost children.
Nobody could do for them what she did. Money could not buy what she
gave naturally, and mere invention could not devise it. She looked up
to Edwin, but at the same time she was mysteriously above both him and
George. She had a strange soft wisdom for them. It was agreeable, and
it was proper, and it was even prudent, to be capricious on occasion and
to win by pouting and wiles and seductions; but beneath all that lay the
tremendous sternness of the wife's duty, everlasting and intricate, a
heavy obligation that demanded all her noblest powers for its
fulfilment. She rose heroically to the thought of duty, conceiving it
as she had never conceived it before. She desired intensely to be the
most wonderful wife in the whole history of marriage. And she believed
strongly in her capabilities.
She went upstairs to put on another and a finer dress; for since the
disastrous sequel to the At Home she had somewhat wearied in the pursuit
of elegance. She had thought: "What is the use of me putting myself to
such a lot of trouble for a husband who is insensible enough to risk my
welfare unnecessarily?" She was now ashamed of this backsliding. Ada
was in the bedroom finicking with something on the dressing-table. Ada
sprang to help as soon as she knew that her mistress had to go out. And
she openly admired the new afternoon dress and seemed as pleased as
though she was to wear it herself. And Ada buttoned her boots and found
her gloves and her parasol, and remembered her purse and her bag and her
handkerchief.
"I don't quite know what time I shall be back, Ada."
"No'm," said Ada eagerly, as though saying: "Of course you don't, m'm.
You have many engagements. But no matter when you come back we shall be
delighted to see you because the house is nothing without you."
"Of course I shall be back for tea."
"Oh, yes'm!" Ada agreed, as though saying: "Need you tell me that, m'm?
I know you would never leave the master to have his tea alone."
Hilda walked regally down the stairs and glanced round about her at the
house, which belonged to Maggie and which Edwin had practically promised
to buy. Yes, it was a fine house, a truly splendid abode. And it seemed
all the finer because it was Maggie's. Hilda had this regrettable human
trait of overvaluing what was not hers and depreciating what was. It
accounted in part, possibly, for her often very critical attitude
towards Edwin. She passed out of the front-door in triumph, her head
full of wise schemes and plots. But even then she was not sure whether
she had destroyed--or could ever destroy, by no matter what arts!--the
huge dangerous lithographic project.
As soon as she was gone, Ada ran yelling to the kitchen:
"Hooray! She's safe."
And both servants burst like infants into the garden, to disport
themselves upon the swing.